Will new session bring devolution?

November 6, 2008

Chris Leslie
LGC

The state opening of Parliament may begin the government’s final opportunity to recapture some momentum ahead of an undoubtedly nail-biting general election.
So what should councils expect? The Queen’s Speech will divide into four themes: ‘economic stability’, ‘personalisation of public services’, ‘helping individuals fulfil their potential’ and — enticingly for local government — ‘handing power back to the people’. An entire quarter of the Queen’s Speech agenda; surely things are looking up?

Before we get too excited, we should remember that our desire to see true devolution is rarely matched by reality. Yet the big bill of the coming session, the Community Empowerment, Housing & Economic Regeneration Bill , has been shaping up as an important advance in sub-national governance.

The credit crunch may well tempt some departments to revert to centralising tendencies. Hopefully these wobbles will not delay this bill, because on the enduring constitutional issues, great steps forward towards a new regional and sub-regional settlement are in prospect.

Despite the best laid plans and advanced announcements, the rumours are that many of the other flagship bills are undergoing a considerable rewrite. This is hardly surprising — the original iterations of the Banking Reform Bill before the summer will need completely reconsidering in today’s climate.

One timely reform would be the removal of the requirement for local authority mortgages to be set at a standard nationally determined interest rate. Councils have sufficient financial acumen to do their own deals helping residents — and new actors in the mortgage business should be encouraged.

A move towards a counter-cyclical ‘new Keynesianism’ could herald legislation allowing councils to use the three-year settlement process to create a new borrowing facility at local level to prevent redundancies at a difficult time for a local economy to bear.

The commitment to legislate in this next session for the local business rates supplement should also continue, though I predict the business community might take the opportunity to urge ministers to place even this modest change on hold.

The economic downturn should cause every corner of the public sector to rethink its role in helping those least resilient to tough times.

Whether through proposals councils are making via the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 or persuading government directly, councils have a duty to address any obstacles that get in their way — including outdated legislative inflexibilities.

Take the spurious law that prevents councils developing renewable energy generation at a local level and selling surplus electricity back to the national grid unless it is connected with heat generation.

A small legal reform could help encourage new innovation in micro-generation, energy from waste and other steps to bring more affordable and lower carbon power sources.

The last thing we need when the going gets tough is a disempowered battery of front-line agencies waiting for guidance from on high. Decentralising legislation should be fast-tracked rather than tinkered with.

An education and skills bill should make councils the strategic commissioners for skills. Offender management could be localised more effectively.

The powers of unelected traffic commissioners could be given to local council leaders. Primary care trust commissioning powers could easily transfer from non-executive board members to locally elected councillors. And government should act consistently in the spirit of place-shaping and ‘whole’ area assessment and place policing accountability with local council leaders.

The wish list is long, but as the legislative clock ticks away the time for bold approaches must be now.

Author: Chris Leslie, Director New Local Government Network.


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